Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc Review – All Hell Breaks Loose

It’s not easy to describe what Chainsaw Man is, but perhaps it can be best summed up as zany carnage. In fact, as far as zaniness goes, on a scale of 1 to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Chainsaw Man is firmly a 12. A never-ending cascade of absurdist cartoon violence, irreverent attitude, and a humorous handling of various anime tropes. The series’ north star is Denji, a self-conscious teenager who, after a near brush with death, is saved when the Chainsaw demon Pochita fuses with Denji’s heart, turning the latter into the titular super being – a violent maniac with chainsaws attached to his head and limbs. As a result, he can transform into Chainsaw Man by pulling on the cord on his chest, which may complete the greatest origin in the history of fiction. But hyperbole aside, Denji’s ascent to demon-hunting superhero remains mired in the constricts and situational dilemmas of teenage life.

The feature film, a continuation of the Manga and anime, is a smorgasbord of the source material’s key elements, all presented in an audacious and unapologetic elixir. The film makes it clear it will feature a great deal of bloody violence, vulgar humor, and scantily clad women (although there are some thematic subversions to consider in this context), and you’re either OK with that as a viewer, or you’re not. Director Tatsuya Yoshihara’s film brims with cinematic innovation, showcasing just how far Japanese animation has come and what the future holds. Much of the film’s action setpieces involve Chainsaw Man dueling with a villainous femme fatale with a literal bomb attached to her neck; the city landscape acting as the battleground for their rendezvous.

What’s impressive about this, and many other such sequences in the movie, is how well Yoshihara and his team of animators blend the best aspects of 2D and 3D animation. Many similar films run into the issue of their 3D models being too overbearing, establishing an uncanny valley effect where such scenes feel disconnected from the movie’s 2D scenes, as if their individual styles belong to two different movies. Chainsaw Man doesn’t have this problem – its action scenes look to be of the same DNA as the moments where two characters are just talking, while the 2D and 3D models share the same space at often incredible speed, to the point that you might not be instantly aware of the differences. The cinematography is adept, and despite the speed at which these superbeings are moving and colliding with each other, all the relevant visual information remains in frame, allowing you to make sense of the chaotic feats, as long as your eye can keep up with the blistering quick camerawork.

The movie may go down as the most beautifully rendered animated film of the year, and it provides stiff competition for Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle as the most impressive action anime adaptation on the calendar. The two films both feature stellar filmmaking, Demon Slayer providing grander vistas and harder hits, while Chainsaw Man has faster-paced setpieces. It’s also a feather in the cap of the latter that its storytelling and fights aren’t in “start… stop” mode, as Demon Slayer’s many (many) flashbacks hurt the movie’s pacing. The caveat here being that sometimes Chainsaw Man’s unrelenting pace can be a bit numbing, especially for the extended fights towards the film’s climax. Both movies run into a ‘less is more’ problem in different ways, but Chainsaw Man feels relatively more brisk and focused.

Denji’s key dilemma is that he can’t decide which woman in his life to fall in love with – a rather ridiculous notion considering women are practically falling at his feet. It’s a typical anime trope – the attractive and anatomically stacked woman who just fawns over the main character, who is often a self-insert for the work’s teen audience. Denji’s love life hits many of these same hallmarks, and his self-consciousness while around women seems unjustified considering his own conventional attractiveness, and the fact that he doesn’t struggle at all to garner the attention of the opposite sex. These types of stories are part of the appeal to anime’s younger audiences, and can set up unrealistic expectations for how love and romance in the real world actually work. To the movie’s credit, one of its usages of this trope is a deliberate bait and switch, which could be seen as satire about the ubiquity of this plot device in anime. And in general, Denji doesn’t get everything he wants in regards to his romantic interests. Yet, the flaws of this type of storytelling are still apparent, and still lead to one of the principal characters in the film fighting in scarce clothing with a piece of cloth barely covering her ass. Such is the medium.

The drama at the center of the film’s stakes is tinged with sardonic humor, but there’s some sincerity to be found within the irony. One of the more human moments in the narrative involves Denji being asked out by Makima… who is technically like his boss, so no pressure I guess. They spend the day hopping to various theaters to watch movies, initially to Denji’s chagrin. They end up seeing real-life 1959 Soviet war film Ballad of a Soldier, of all things, and it’s the first time Denji experiences the emotive power of cinema as he tries to hide his tears from his date. This, and many sections of the film, invite an interesting comparison between the Japanese and English versions of both films. The English version, even with its flaws, arguably lends itself to indulge further into the movie’s comedy – the voice actors in the dub are delivering more scene-chewing comedic performances. Whereas, some of the voices in Japanese are so gruff and stoic, it at times stifles the intended comedic effect of a scene.

However, the Japanese version is likely more suitable for catching all of the nuances within the story. It’s an instance where both versions do certain things better than the other, as if some cut that combines the strengths of both would be the optimum experience. When Makima explains her relationship to movies in English, she states that every once in a while she’ll find a film that makes every bad film she’s watched totally worth it. In Japanese, she alludes specifically to Ballad of a Soldier as the movie that makes it all worth it, drawing greater focus to the importance of that movie… but in sort of an awkward way that makes it seem like it’s the only movie she’s ever seen that she considers good. There should be a middle ground that ties what works about both versions together.

Nonetheless, it’s here that the movie, despite its edgy surface, advocates for the freedom to express one’s emotions, whether they be man, woman, or demon. Chainsaw Man is still buried deeply into the trappings of your typical teen-targeted Shonen saga, with equal amounts cool and immature concepts. That juvenile chaos is, admittedly, what makes the movie fun. But there is a part of this film that yearns to be something more and desires to express a wider range of emotions. Even if, ironically, the landscape of the genre it has so successfully replicated, as well as parodied, isn’t quite ready for that ambitious humanistic approach. Maybe it’s baby steps. But Chainsaw Man is a rather unique movie in that it knows what it needs to be and does it very well, but ever so often shows the aptitude to take its art to a higher level. Almost as if it’s stuck between two personas – the cool facade, and the emotional art lover that hides itself under a veneer of awesome destruction.